6 Basic Ways To Care For Your Hermit Crab

Not known to many, hermit crabs can make good pets. They are not only fun to watch and play with, they are also relatively inexpensive and easy to take care of. Even when they are far taken out of their natural beach habitat, they can live for a number of years. The key to success in raising hermit crabs is to take good care of them. Hermit crabs do not require a lot of things in order to live; however, there are some ways on how to take care of and for a hermit crab properly to prolong the life of your pet. Hermit crabs need only a few things that they must have so that they could live longer and develop in their new aquarium home. Here are some tips on how to take care of and for a hermit crab:

1. Provide your pet with a new and nice place to live in. Depending on the number of crabs you would want to raise, look for an aquarium that is sized appropriately. A 10-gallon tank is suitable for one crab. Hermit crabs also love to be with their friends. Back in their natural habitats, your pet crab is most likely seen to be strolling around with hordes of other smaller little hermits.

2. Use a suitable substrate, preferably playground sand to line the bottom of the aquarium to about 2 to 3 inches in depth. This could be bought from a pet or hardware store.

3. Make sure to keep a wet section in the aquarium to serve as the crab抯 swimming pool. Here you can use a big overturned shell to do the job while providing your pet its much-needed dose of calcium.

4. To aid in the process of evaporation, put in a size of a fist natural sponge into the water. In this way, the air in the tank will be kept humid, just as how your pet likes it.

5. Once a day, feed your pet a pinch of hermit crab food that you can buy at the pet store. You can also give your pet cereal, vegetables and fruits once in a while.

6. Provide your hermit crab a space to develop and grow by providing it on its habitat a wide range of spiral shells as to allow it to select a series of new homes whenever it is ready to move out of its shell.

For an additional tip on how to take care of and for a hermit crab, when your pet is starting to shed off from its shell, you must keep an eye on it because it might be dead and you wouldn抰 even know it. Also, when trying to move your pet crab into another habitat, make sure to be very gentle in doing so. Hermit crabs at times can be very fragile and even though they live in a shell, if you are not gentile with them you can can cause them great harm. I hope these tips have helped.